Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Yet ANOTHER Marine Corps helicopter makes forced landing in Japan!

via Asia.nikkei

A U.S. military AH-1 attack helicopter appears to have made a forced landing Tuesday night on a tiny island in Okinawa Prefecture, a Japanese government source said.

The incident, which took place around 8 p.m. on Tonaki Island, west of Okinawa's main island, is the latest in a series of accidents and mishaps in the southern island prefecture involving U.S. military aircraft. The two crew members aboard the helicopter were not injured, according to local police.

The U.S. military has told the Japanese government that the helicopter made a precautionary landing after a warning light came on. The AH-1 belongs to U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa, according to the source.

Japan's central and local governments have expressed concern recently about the frequency of accidents involving U.S. military aircraft in Okinawa, which hosts the bulk of U.S. forces in Japan.

Two forced landings occurred earlier in the month. In one of the cases, an AH-1 made what the U.S. military described as a precautionary landing at a waste disposal site in the village of Yomitan.

In December, a window fell from a CH-53E large transport helicopter as it was flying over an elementary school just outside the Futenma base.

No one was injured in the three incidents.

No snide remark on this one.

No banging on the Air Wing either. This is no longer funny, no longer a matter of budget, no longer a cause for derision.

I don't know what's going on with Marine Air in Okinawa but they need to fix it with a quickness.